Mission Eastis a Danish international relief and development organisation, working in Eastern Europe and Asia. Our aim is to deliver relief aid, to create and support long-term development projects and to empower local aid organisations to carry on the work independently. Making no racial, religious or political distinction between those in need, we aim to assist the most vulnerable.

Ensuring Ellen gets help

Tuesday September 10th was a long day in the province of Tavush in Northern Armenia.
With a five-member group from Denmark and Germany, I visited the medical centre Mission East had opened more than four years ago, a Child Development and Rehabilitation Centre run by Mission East partner Arabkir, where children with a disability can get a diagnosis and follow-up care from a number of specialists under the leadership of a clever paediatrician.
We also visited a poor family living high up on the mountain slopes, with a 2½ year-old daughter still showing some effects of having been born under less than ideal circumstances, but now largely recovered from a condition of paralysis of her right arm.
Despite the distance from her mountain home to the Mission East Centre, and despite the poverty of her family, Ellen now has a real chance to get a better life, and to be integrated into Armenian society.
Please have a look at these pictures and read the stories of Ellen and the other children receiving help from the Centre in Tavush, a remote province in north-eastern Armenia!

Here, Ellen and Aren with their 22-year old mother Armine. The family used to live in a wagon now used as a cowshed, but currently the family rent a room in a larger house. Everywhere in the room the poverty of the family is evident. The father of the family, 30-year old Chachak, earns circa $200 a month guarding the frontier with neighboring Azerbaijan. He is away for two weeks at a time, and then home for two weeks. Armenia still has not signed a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, following the war between the two nations from 1988 to 1994, and there are frequent skirmishes along the long frontier between the two nations. The province of Tavush is heavily influenced by the lack of security along the border, which has a negative impact on the development of the province.